little BIG TYPE SAYS MORE, boxed

Visiting a 17 meters wide and 2.83 meters tall typographic installation in a museum commands presence and engagement, but the downside to large site specific, and often temporary, installations is that relatively few people have the chance to encounter them.
In early 2013 we were asked to exhibit our work in ‘CO-LAB’, an exhibition about the future of the graphic design profession (03/05/13-25/05/13), and we utilized the occasion to translate ‘BIG TYPE SAYS MORE’, our hand made typographic installation for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen from 2006, into a machine made scale model (1:10) titled, ‘little BIG TYPE SAYS MORE’. In 2006 the original installation was crafted with our 4 bare hands and required 5 weeks to complete. In 2013, ‘little BIG TYPE SAYS MORE’, required 15 minutes to read and convert the digital files, 197 minutes to laser cut and engrave the MDF and 10 hours to assemble the structure.
As a prototype the translation explores differences between hand made and machine made craft, scale, space and issues of commodification. After ‘little BIG TYPE SAYS MORE’ was included in the exhibition ‘Design in Rotterdam. 1988-2013’, we explored the themes in a final translation. This resulted in an even smaller scale model (1:15) of the original installation for which we created modular components separated into 4 parts and into 4 custom designed cardboard boxes. ‘little BIG TYPE SAYS MORE’ can be ordered online and is, once again, assembled by hand. The experience of a museum quality, environmental typographic installation captured in a common brown box.
About BIG TYPE SAYS MORE (2006)
Over the course of 5 weeks, using industrial handheld jigsaws and paint, we manually produced a 5 layer thick, 2.83 meters high, and over 17 meters wide typographic installation as part of the ongoing exhibition ‘Cut for Purpose’, at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. The typographic structure was positioned as the front section of a spatial (honeycomb) cardboard structure by Stealth.ltd, enticing the viewer from the windows, glass entrance and upon approach rewarding them with increasingly complex, yet graceful forms. Our objective was to merge contemporary technology with traditional craftsmanship while representing the diverse, multi-cultural and architectural city of Rotterdam. In the end, custom programmed micro controllers sequenced LED’s which were mounted to add a ‘touch of Vegas’ to the type that we created specifically for this project. (BIG TYPE SAYS MORE is now part of the permanent collection of the museum)